Monday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 15, 2024

Mark 2, 18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to Jesus and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”  This objection or criticism persisted during the Lord’s ministry.  Later he will exclaim, “John came neither eating nor drinking; and they say: He has a devil. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drunkard” (Matthew 11, 18-19).  Many of the Jews saw Jesus as a follower of St. John the Baptist, carrying on his work.  For them, Jesus contradicted his master’s lifestyle because he did not fast and so he was unacceptable.  Perhaps Jesus did not enforce a strict regimen of fasting among his Apostles  reflected his desire to show that he was, in fact, not a follower of John the Baptist.  More practically, John’s disciples, who stayed around the spot where he baptized, could fast without deleterious effects, but the Apostles, on the move constantly, would not have been able to keep a rigorous fast without serious consequences.  

But quite apart from those considerations, let us see what Jesus says: “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.”  The Lord speaks of himself as “the bridegroom”, just as John the Baptist had spoken of him earlier.  Just as the Son of God joined himself to human nature so that his divine nature was united to, but not mixed with, human nature so that it existed in a union, so the Incarnate Lord came to join himself to the Church.  He calls himself the Bridegroom of his Bride the Church (this is the primary reason a woman cannot be ordained as a priest: a woman cannot be conformed as a bridegroom in the Bridegroom).  The wedding guests — the Lord’s followers, who had accepted the invitation extended to all — did not fast because the time had come to celebrate with great joy the arrival of the Savior of the world: “I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people” (Luke 2, 10).  The followers of Jesus fast now according to the Church’s laws (though the periods of fasting have greatly lessened over the centuries) so that we may do penance and perform other penitential works for our sins, with an eye to the Lord’s return or in honor of his Passion and Death,

“No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.”  The Lord here teaches of the necessity of grace for understanding, accepting, and practicing what he teaches.  Those who lack grace, especially by refusing it, will not be able to understand the Lord’s words.  The parables will remain inscrutable to them.  The requirement for contending against the world, the flesh, and the devil will not make any sense.  These cannot get past their strongly held notion that life is for pleasure and that good health and prosperity are its highest goals.  The idea of service to one another is childish.  Grace elevates and transforms.  It enables us to see ourselves, others, and God in the bright light of reality so that we can look forward to, and work for, eternal life, feasting with Jesus in the land eternally flowing with milk and honey.